188 MODALITY can C1 USE: PAST NEGATIVE, DEDUCTIONS ‘can’t’ or ‘cannot have’ + ‘-ed’ to make deductions.
Category: modality
CAN (focus)
186 MODALITY can C1 expressions with ‘can’ or ‘can’t’ to give focus or add emphasis, such as ‘as you can see’, ‘I can’t say’, ‘I can tell you that’, ‘as you can imagine’, ‘I can say that’, ‘I can assure you that’
can’t cannot (questions)
75 MODALITY can B1 negative question forms in main clauses and question tags.
cannot can’t (clashing levels)
There are at least 7 grammar points related to the negative form of ‘can’ in the category of MODALITY in the English Grammar Profile. Four of these cannot be differentiated by form alone automatically, so, therefore, will require manual interpretation. These are: Point 12 A1 can negative. Point 50 can A2: give and refuse […]
CAN (increasing range of adverbs)
Point 173 in the category of MODALITY is defined as: ‘can’ with an increasing range of adverbs (including ‘easily’, ‘hardly’, ‘now’, ‘probably‘, ‘sometimes’, ‘still’) in the normal mid position after the modal verb or after the subject in questions. When doing a cluster search on iWeb for can_v _r _vvi* ‘hardly’, ‘probably’ or ‘sometimes’ do not […]
BE more | less likely
Point 169 in the category of MODALITY is defined as: ‘(much) more/less’ to modify ‘likely’ in a comparison. There is overlap with point 63 in ADVERB phrases: types and meanings at C1. degree adverbs (‘slightly’, ‘a bit’, ‘much‘) to modify comparatives A cluster search on iWeb for * * less|more likely * *: 1 […]
must admit
Point 165 in the category of MODALITY is defined as: the fixed expression ‘I must admit’ or ‘you must admit’ to express concession. ‘you’ is much rarer than ‘I’ When we search on iWeb: 1 YOU MUST ADMIT THAT THERE IS A 5 Interest.co.nz Why it has never been more important for New Zealand […]
As you may – have past participle
Point 163 MODALITY is defined as: ‘may’ in phrases such as ‘as you may know’, or ‘as you may have’ + ‘-ed’ to focus the reader on shared knowledge. This partly overlaps point 168 MODALITY and PAST AFFIRMATIVE of ‘may have’ + ‘-ed’ to talk about possibility in the past. A search on iWeb […]
would (habitual past)
B2 point 160 in MODALITY is defined as: ‘would’ to talk about habitual actions and events in the past It formally overlaps A2 point 26 in MODALITY: ‘would’ to talk about imagined situations. Looking in iWeb corpus manually for collocates of ‘every’ ‘time‘ with ‘would’ is 1 in 5 on the usage: ..note, my mom […]
should (ellipsis)
Point 159 in MODALITY and ELLIPSIS is defined as: ‘should’ and ‘shouldn’t’ without a following verb where the previous main verb is understood *click here for the interactive word tree of this grammar point. A search on iWeb for the cluster: * * * * should . B1 vocabulary: familiar, seriously, B2: efficiently function 1 […]